To Catch One's Breath
by Rooster Mutt
Summary: "Such condemned creatures are we to believe that our inequality has blessed us so grossly... to have never anticipated justice." 1,000 tributes, Capitol-bred, sent into a place where it was questionable if a victor would come out. Where one could hardly see in front of themselves. Where one could hardly breathe. (Self-Submitted HG) (AU)
1. PROLOGUE

**AUTHOR'S NOTES COLLECTION**

**PT1, 12/3/14 -** Byron as a little boy, for now. Writing this one, I started to feel like all the imagery was getting a little weird as I went. You know, 'swirling scents of fruit' and such. Everything's extravagant in the Capitol, so I guess _that_ was okay, but... eh. A cool (if not slightly spoiler-y) side-note: the small boy with the feathers who was sitting in front of Byron is going to return in chapter three. Psst... look out for the name 'Soomjone,' please and thanks.

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><p><strong>PT2, 124/14 -** Alejandro! So, I skipped the little tidbit where I ramble on and on about personalities and histories in the 'character list' section, and I sort of just decided to wing it all; go with the flow; just write until I fell unconscious on the ground. This chapter is just for a bit of background. Another cameo of a character that no-one, save for only one person, will recognize. Not much to A/N about today. Wah.

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><p><strong>PT3, 128/14 - **Yep. So, I went there, I fear. Too much description and too much imagery. I know. Way too much that I should be doing to really accomplish a whole lot of editing these chapters. Ahead of time, I give you my apologies. Soomjone is going to be a bit of an outside character to keep our eyes on what's going on outside of the games. To those who wonder, I most likely won't ever just hit you with a random Soomjone chapter when the previous chap has ended on a cliffhanger. I would love to know if anyone is reading this, as well! Not to seem desperate. *Seems desperate.*

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><p><span><strong>TRIBUTE LIST<strong>

**+ WARD 18 - **Wila Dondle; Sept. 18; Age 19

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><p><strong>+ WARD 18 - <strong>Arrhenius Sylve; March 4; Age 15

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><p><strong>+ WARD 22 -<strong> Byron Hanna; Nov. 3; Age 20

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><p><strong>+ WARD 22 -<strong> Pearl Hanna; Feb. 27; Age 20

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><p><strong>+ WARD 25 -<strong> Ellmoe Jusole; Jul. 16; Age 10

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><p><strong>+ WARD 37 -<strong> Alejandro McKant; April 2; Age 17

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><p><strong>+ WARD 43 -<strong> Franklin Beebe; Oct 8; Age 19

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><p><strong>"If you prick us, do we not bleed? . . . If you poison us, do we not die? . . . If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" <em>- Shakespeare<em>**


	2. In The Schoolhouse

**YEAR 2146 - BYRON HANNA**

The tiny hands of Byron Hanna were shaded brown, darker than most of the other little paint-coated hands in the rest of the small classroom, all red and dry with marker accidents. The room's aroma was that of a candy store. Many shades and scents of paint wafted about the air, weaving to and from one corner to the next, sending little minds mixed messages of fresh pies and lollipops. Blueberry for blue, strawberry for red, all smelling like the aromas themselves hailed straight from District Eleven.

The lot of their ages, all added up and blended, days, months, and other time-measuring fashions of the such, couldn't amount to any more than a century. And on the wall, a limply-waving white swathe of parchment announced '1ST GRADE!' in strawberry and peach fragrances. Byron's squirmy fingers were smearing themselves over a tablet of glass. His palms pressed tiny smoke frames of condensation the size of two golf balls over the surface, a pinpoint of an index finger smoothing chicken scratch into the technology.

Every word before the small boy's brown eyes was written in a font that seemed like cursive. With its little curls and fast-drawn footballs dotted above the 'i's, he felt like he had created words that were nothing short of fine calligraphy. To any bespectacled being with a slender eraser-tip nose and pinched-together buttocks, the words were only a mess of scribble colored a certain black on the space of ivory. Nevertheless, Byron pounded; his warm digits pressed into the glass, and provided something of a grin - one that spread across his teeth and bent his cheeks into two smooth, side-by-side mounds tinted slightly purple and tainted with tawny yellow paint. A splotch of the color had woven itself into the hair on his left eyebrow and tainted the black tendrils the color of honey.

Just in front of him, a small, dark-skinned figure ruffled its white feathers from where it sat at the wooden desk. Its chubby hands wriggled and moved ecstatically, working wrinkles into the flesh and making the whole child appear more like a winged mound of chocolate cake dough. Through golden open sandals, one could observe the chubby toes twisting and moving back and forth to match the small person's excitement. The tiniest of tan-lipped smiles tightened itself over the face of the modified child as its fingers splashed in colored paste.

Papers were being produced from a thin tablet-like hunk of technology that sat beside the screen mounted on Mrs. C's oak table. Sprinkled over the giant desk was a number of markers and pencils; sticks of color melted from the wax of candles, infused with just as much generic perfume as was being forced from the opulent paint. Page after glistening page, each sheet producing warmth that Byron pressed to the side of his face when one of the sheets was daintily handed to him. Mrs. C was shoving a paper into the hand of every child who sat in the left-side row of the class. Eight tables all together, both split into four on each side; both seating two children with last names that were the most similar. Should someone unfamiliar with the layout find themselves stepping in to observe, they might confuse the setup for Moses' biblical splitting of the vast Red Sea.

"Now. Children..." There was a quite unnecessary roll of her words as they crept from her sky-blue painted lips. Her every syllable washed over the children with a warmth that smelled of blueberries while her yellow hair reeked strongly of butterscotch. "Who believes that they know... what _exactly_ gave Panem its name?"

Byron vaguely felt the eyebrows of the child next to him crease into a tangled jumble of peach-auburn hair — a kid who just didn't _know _as much as he did. The words he wanted to say bubbled up so softly in Byron's mind like little white balloons of soggy, whimsy-ridden ideas sprouting like old moss in the corners of his brain. Like bubble soap floating of the surface of a half-full bathtub, and the spout was being turned on, and out poured the warm water. "Whoever answers this one will also need to tell us what the word 'freedom' means."

He knew he had to raise his hand. Youth jumbled his priorities, and he didn't usually ever feel compelled to alert any of his class to the truth of the stories he was told by his mother regarding his father. War, war all over - that was all Byron knew regarding the utopia he inhabited. And with the words that simmered just behind his teeth, small lips glistening with saliva pursed themselves together. He twiddled his tiny thumbs against each other. His mouth was making the shape of a bubble when he sprung up his hand. The teal-green gaze of Mrs. C glided its way to meet Byron's tiny form, a single head among the crop of small children. Something nervous bubbled up like kindling in the core of the little boy as she examined him with buttercup-yellow brows lightly raised.

"Oh! Little By-By Hanna. Our little Roanoke!" She remarked to herself. Her mouth emitted the breath of something one might smell leaking from the corners of a large oven in the back of a Corner Bakery, toasting with yummy warm heat and the aroma of to-die-for blueberry pie, all fuzzy at the edges. The teacher's lips glittered in a manner reminiscent of the sky in the afternoon. Byron's stirring mind was infused with memories of kite flying. Mrs. C had little pink nails that glistened as she lightly raised her hand in a half-mock of Byron's excitement. The little boy could be seen with a twitching mouth as she looked at him. "Do _you_ have an answer for the class? Something you'd like to tell?"

When Byron tested his breath, air leaked out that smelled only of nothing. Water and bread. Maybe a hint of bacon from the morning - nothing so extravagant, nothing that quite seemed to match the odors of color that tainted the room. As he wriggled his brows beneath the pressure, the splotch of paint that coated the hair on his left was dry. His voice somersaulted before him when he spoke, almost visible in front of him; small sounding. "We were... we were made after a _big_ war," he told the classroom, tiny arms thick with the chub of youth spread emphatically to either of his sides, "And we almost lost. So we killed people and their_families. _After that —"

A grimace chased over Mrs. C's expression, tightening her jaw, twisting wrinkles into her flesh and snarling her eyebrows with such intensity that creases bent themselves in places where they shouldn't have been. Half of the hair atop her head appeared to shift. The child with the feathers faced small Byron, its wide blue eyes peering at the face of his classmate with misunderstanding. Mrs. C shifted to _'Tasmanian Devil'. _She was booking her way after Byron Hanna, and her pink-tipped digits loosened over the sack of warm papers she'd once been passing. As terror worked against her pretty features, the thin white sheets floated down to a small puddle of strawberry paint on the ground. Byron cringed and pushed his body away from his desk not quickly enough. Mrs. C had his arm clutched firmly in her grip. "What are you _saying_?!"

It all seemed to bombard the small boy in a single instant - all the smells and colors became overpowering, draining into his lungs, snaking through his nostrils. Even her shouts were infused with color. He could_ hear_ the sickening sweet blueberries. His body shook erratically, tiny, fat-blanketed fingers losing color and turning pink and cold. Her nails were shorter than those of most Capitol women, but she could _bite_ into his flesh with the pink, cupcake plastic that was glued to them. She coaxed a yelp from his throat, dragging him. Tacked to weakly to the wall, the limp flyer told them, '1ST GRADE!'

"I _have_ to get you _out_ of here!" Mrs. C shouted to herself, and her voice was inflicted by pure horror, like the boy had threatened her family and had come into her class with an automatic gun. High ends topped the edges of her words like mountain peaks. Byron's limbs tripped over themselves, glow-in-the-dark dinosaur sneakers smashing into the tile ground and emitting a roar after every one of his footsteps. _'Unlimited T-rex edition! On sale now, buy Triceratops shoes —'_

"Mrs. C! Mrs. _C_! What did I do?" Painful warmth extended its thickness over the plain of Byron's face, his right arm trailing at the both of their backs, swinging behind the two of them like a streamer of celebration; a flagella as his right arm was being held in the clutch of an angry woman drunk on scorn. He hadn't believed she would respond. A grown left the woman's lips, tainted with fruit and fright as she tugged him through a hallway where the smell of perfumed Crayola paint did not exist to stab into Byron's senses. He just wanted to know what was happening. The thoughts about history were beginning to evaporate, rising to the very tip of his soul and turning to smoke, like it was dying in light of all this confusion. The only desire for him was to know why this was happening — all of it. And Mrs. C continued to yank him through the hallways. She left scars on his arm that would from momentarily into purple bruises that his mother would lay eyes on when he returned. _If_ he came home.

Desperation framed the edges of his voice in a hot and sticky tone that croaked from the core of his throat as he kept to keep up with his teacher's pace. "Mrs. C! Why am I a bad boy?" Warmth was trailing down the edges of his dark face and leaving small puddles in the curves of his tiny neck, pooling in between the wrinkled of his baby fat and sliding beneath his collared shirt. He just wanted to go home; to see his mother and hug her and have her tell him that everything was alright. "Why-y-y...?" His voice rocked with the waver of a boat struggling at sea. "Take me home. Let me go," he sniffled.

"You _are_ going home!" It looked like there was something else she wanted to add, but she didn't dare, as a sickly green coat of color crept over her expression like a shade of pure sickness. She merely pulled on him harder. Her voice was low. It sounded as if it came straight from the pit of her throat as it bobbed with her anger.

She was frightening. Bryon hadn't though to yank against her force, but when he did, it seemed to increase it all. Her fingers were digging deeper into his bruises. Shouts of pain escaped him with full force, and so she twisted him around; took hold of his other arm. "Say 'hi' to your principal." Her words were broken sparsely by a number of pauses as the two of them came to a stop, throwing Byron's body against her hip and a trail of vomit rising in her throat at the thought of the child being too close. The Principal's Office door came into direct view as Byron scrambled from her side. He was shoved by her pink fingers into a room where it was darker and the desk was made of metal, framed by a single chair on the side where chairs usually weren't. The room smelled more of must and not of color. Color was the one thing that it lacked.

The small child's eyes leaked themselves of their liquids; the door behind him was slammed with such ferocity that the room, to him, appeared to quake. There was a man sitting on the other end of the desk. Beside him was the same tablet-like contraption that Mrs. C had, only this time, the paper that slid from its depths was the first of many hundreds of forms that would eventually spell out what happened to Byron in the years that followed.

When Byron was no longer a child, it became obvious what the government would do. They would reap him.


	3. Flight of the Politicians

**YEAR 2159 - ALEJANDRO MCKANT**

The President's office was a room of dark ideas and unsure intentions, infused with the swollen dirtiness that one would expect of a man who really didn't have to bathe much to gain his respect. The Capitol's designated leader was a guy who called himself Water, though the people of Panem all knew that that was simply an alias. Walter Grenritch, a man with a nasty combover wallowing in grease, each and every hastily-combed strand glistening with both sweat and a special hair serum that was undoubtedly a product plug for something.

He had matching yellow teeth, crusted with the remnants of white plaque buildup, and every time he smiled, it reminded you of something dead. Of a person who tried too hard, or didn't know what he was doing right away. This Watler Grenritch, the designated president, was a man who hadn't memorized the blueprints. And Alejandro could have sworn that he just had a jar of ideas that he kept hidden in a shelf inside that old, oaken desk he was leaning over. A cup labeled 'plans', overflowing with torn-up shreds of yellowed paper, colored the shade of honeysuckle, that he could just shove a hand inside of a yank out his next plan for action.

He was one of those men whose hand Alejandro McKant would only take a hold of if he had to. And even then, he knew that he mind would only be coursing through the number of explanations as to why the president had such a greasy substance coating his wrinkly palm. Any man or woman who stood in the president's office on this day was a representative of one of the political parties that composed Panem. Save for their sons, of which Alejandro was one. _Bring Your Son To Work Day_ was a classic item in the Capitol - have a relative manipulate your work and possibly be an even worse detriment to your future; it was a stellar opportunity, don't get it misunderstood. But on today, of all other times, BYSW was an occasion that should have been postponed.

Every talk that rocketed through the room felt like a bullet whizzing over Alejandro's head, and he just wanted to smoke. The thoughts in his mind fluttered to overbearing pictures of heavy glass bulbs and a lighter, the bulb filled to the fullest with ivory crystal rocks, glistening, shifting with Alejandro's swift movement of the hand, clear smoke like steam wafting from the tube's long neck, making the hairs on the surface of Alejandro's neck spring to life. The conversations where he sat consisted only of death. Death here, death there, _death_, because at this pace, it was coming for _him_. A spark of panic rustled and groaned from the sheer core of his chest. Alejandro smoothed a hand over his sweat.

Dad: "Then we'll make them kill _each other!_ Sir, a _mass_ execution won't —"

"Are you raising your voice at me, Mr McKant? Because your son —" a fierce push forward of a greasy finger had Alejandro glaring at the president when he shouldn't have, because pointing, regardless of _who_ you were, was stinkin' rude, "— is right there, right within the area of a blood splash. We shoot you now, not only does he get to watch, but he gets to _feel_ it."

Alejandro's father had his thigh pressed to his son's shoulder, he was standing so close. He watched his father's eyes soften, the corners of his mouth wrinkling in distaste, and even his mustache appearing to furrow in some sort of fright at president Grenritch. His father almost sat back down, but he didn't, no matter how loudly Alejandro was mentally screaming at him to _be quiet. _

Alejandro let his eyes settle near the collar on his father's glistening suit, where a pendant of a fiery alligator-like creature snarled at him, white teeth shining with a detailed image of saliva, speckled with red met, the remnants of a devoured creature that lay, now, within the creature's stomach. The pendant was large — big enough that, as Alejandro stared at it, he could imagine the thing wriggling to life and wrestling from its position to gnaw feverishly on the stubble that made the sparkle appear over his father's neck. Oh, dear, daddy was sweating now. Alejandro stifled a warm sigh. It was better to keep disdain like this to himself.

Insults shot through the room and ricocheted from corner to corner,and Alejandro's eyes caught a gleam inside them, reflecting the blue in them, shining with something like a betrayed innocence as his gaze fluttered over Grenritch's thumb as he fingered his automatic weapon. It sat just before Alejandro on the desk. The black metal was intimidating, sleek like a new car, reeking of the smell of the President and his father's sweat. At last, Grenritch dragged his big doe eyes from Alejandro's father.

It was another man challenging the president now, shouting things like "don't let them make an arena," and other pointless things of the sort that didn't make a difference to Alejandro's lifestyle either way. As he studied the man and his small counterpart, Alejandro's fingers picked nervously at the skin at his wrist from beneath his suit cuff. Itch, itch, nervous twitch, and as his teeth bit together, a symptom of withdrawal, he could only feel happier that Mr. Flowers' son looked like he might have even worse problems.

Really — Alejandro wouldn't _lie_. He wasn't a _judgmental douche_. The kid looked messed up. Angular face, a bulb-like oily nose with more grease per square inch than all of the grease on the president's head. His eyes were powdery, like chalk, the sites of his eyes seeming to bleed into his light blue irises. He had large, knob-like ears and his ears were a straight and tired like. He had brown hair like old pepper. He looked just like his father.

A breathless voice shoved itself from the depths of a gulping windpipe blurted from a pair of slimy lips that were thin like worms, with a serpent's fork of a tongue poking out and moistening the horribly chapped flesh as the pure image of panic did acrobatics over Mr. Flowers' face. He seemed about ready to scream and rush from the room in a terror whirlwind. "Then make it a game, make it — make it a game," he urged the president. Walter blanched momentarily. It was his turn to lick the sweat from his mouth.

"A game?" The president queried. Exhaustion peddled in his voice.

"A game, yes."

"Why, what do I need... with a game, Mr. Flowers?" President Walter looked exasperated. His hand folded itself in half, and the wrinkles creased hardly over his palm, shivering, quaking as he brushed it over the indentations of sweat atop his forehead, and his voice shook. It looked like nobody would ever learn what he had wrong with him besides a dictatorial mentality.

The weird kid's father shook within the confines of his suit. He used a single finger, almost a talon-like appendage of his, to shift the collar of his undershirt for a short burst of the cool air that suffocated the room. "Reap the players — participants, whatever. Younger than 10 years; older than twenty." The childish _'Okay?'_ was hidden from his spoken words, but it shook in time with the waver of his hand as he brought it down to his side and rattled the small pamphlet of papers in his grasp. Alejandro watched his motions steadily as the politician pulled up his arm again. His crusted fingernail was pointing at Alejandro, scratched and bitten all to hell. "You can start the reaping with him."


	4. Red is the Color of Heat

**YEAR 2160, JAN 15 - BYRON HANNA**

Pearl was pulling her loved one close, hands braced onto his collar, the white fabric melting beneath the warmth of her fingers. Her lips pouted against the edge of the cool air, pink, wrinkled with the tiniest indentations of a frown. A child clung itself to her right leg, and black, tight-woven curls bounced atop its crown as he latched hands with his smaller brother, who clenched into the pant leg of his towering father.

Byron had his arm strung around his wife's back, a hand in hers, holding firmly on. His steely gaze brushed itself over the wide-open swarm of scents and colors; sunset pinks and neon yellow burnt holes into his eyes, and the only warmth seemed to be the digits of his wife, whitening fingers that dug themselves a space beside his neck as her head lay securely on his shoulder. Their family had grown extensively since the beginning. Two chiming, bobbing heads joined Byron and his wife, filling to house to its very boundaries with screams that echoed and tile kitchen floors that stuck to the bottom of your foot if you dared to step atop them without socks.

The counters were caked with dried dough in places where dough didn't belong, and life had become a symphony of questions as to whether the lights were still on when they all got loaded into the car. A large ocean of humans clamored about the four of them, and all the while, Byron stood in a silence that was somewhat stoic. He was well aware of what would be happening. The lines and edges in his skin seeped to deepen. It cast shadows over his expression, etched solemnness into his otherwise bulky appearance. He was a man bound in muscle and scratched with history.

Name after name, the camera seemed to be catching his image. He and his family stood in the right hand side of the screening, cornered from the rest of them, but always a part of the frame. A childish giggle surged from behind as a yellow-haired woman spotted one of Byron's sons running a circle around the frozen family.

People were stepping themselves up to the square in wide collections, name after name, and a click-clacking clamor of shoes and stilettos echoed through the large expanse. Tears, sobbing - these were sounds that could only be heard from a few of them. But that was only when they were just had to listen. His light gaze sprinkled with regret as he cast his stare over his shoulder toward the mowing total of bodies._ "Yes, you will be going into the Hunger Games. Yes, there is a good chance that, ma'am, you won't be _coming_ back to them. Please just . . ."_

A tug on the pants leg, courtesy of a little hand, had the father inching the corner of his mouth into a smile. He'd grown more than used to feigning something he didn't feel for the sake of one of his boys, resolve against lying to them caving beneath the weight of their concern. Small voices speaking the word 'Daddy,' whispered from the center of tiny, puckered lips and eyes watery with the remnants of the morning's wake-up process. Patience was a thing Byron had still tried to learn, a he knew this more than ever now, as the feigned smile wiped itself on its own accord and replaced itself with the fear that boiled in the pit of his stomach. He is voice sounded too worried, and he murmured, "Chris." Large, rock-like firm arms took a hold of his son, and he rocked the child's warmth against his chest; pressed his chapped lips to the boy's shaved head as people stepped through the large expanse.

The woman standing at the center of the stage was wearing something in the realm of a tiger pelt coat, the thick blanket coating her shoulders and her lips painted brown, wriggling in words as her eyes glanced at the crowd with hints of confusion keeping her face alight in the cold. A shuddering paper was held tight between her fingers, pinched waveringly in her grasp, and a steady river of redness trailed up the core of her neck. She was botching the names.

Words came from past her lips like drips of water from the tube of a faucet that shouldn't have been running to begin with. Her eyes shifted in all of their darkness, scrambling to put faces to names, and she huffed a strong gasp, sucking in all the air she could when a man from the crowd howled at her. Millions of people wormed in like serpents in rows of sweat and smell, exasperation painting the makeup on their faces and filling the entire city with a feeling of hopelessness that couldn't quite be brushed from the shoulder.

Her voice shook like she thought she would be shot.

"F-frankline Bebe." A driblet of water wavered over her lash, face shading scarlet. 'Goodness, did I pronounce that right?' She was undoubtedly about ready to leap from the stage. Another woman came sauntering behind her, her hair in an up-do and her skin powder-white. The women's hands hastily exchanged the papers, and this new arrival looked directly into the crowd.

She appeared to be more used to it this time, and Chris released a whining plea of hunger in the arms of his father. Byron rocked him in his arms. "Hello, fellow residents of the Capitol. Effie Trinket here - it seems that _I _will be taking over this..." her eyes shifted in light blue drags, "reaping."

Byron didn't find his eyes lingering on the odd exchange for long, as the other woman was being dragged into the government palace by the arms, kicking and shrieking and Peacekeeper hands stringing themselves over her mouth as the doors boomed heavily closed and something of an explosion rocketed from behind them. People who were reaped not only were crying - some of them lay limply on the ground at their partners' feet, unconscious, drool trailing from their motionless lips.

Effie cleared her throat louder. A strange noise leaked from the speakers, sprinkling the area with an aroma even stranger. She was prepared to re-read the previous name, though the cameras were bringing their sights to a place where, apparently, action was occurring. Effie read out the name anyway, which turned out to be 'Franklin Beebe,' though not a single soul could have been listening.

Many people had their necks craned, the cords beneath their colorful skin drawn taut. They were investigating the precariously-hung widescreen above them. The technology had a picture so wide that it could be pried at by tens of thousands of people at once, and though clothing was sent at flight in the breeze, the screen was tightly bolted and unmoving, held firm with the work of many a man underpaid.

A figure framed by dark hair had a mane of black whipping around, curling in loose, infrequent rivulets over his shoulders as he turned toward the escort. His eyelids, tanned with the weight of the afternoon, glittered under a thick sheet of sweat, and the brown irises opened to the width of two glittering full moons. His lips parted themselves with the pressure of thick, heaving breaths, all of which seemed to angrily press their way through his chest, sending it flying forward and flat, back and forth. Suddenly, he dropped his eyes to the ground. His body shook in convulsions. He lost complete and utter control of his hands. They were frantically scraping at his face now, though the nails were cut, freshly bitten anxious rows of white.

This man named Franklin was sprinkled with patches of facial hair, a line of black tainting his upper lip and stubble brushing over the bottom of his chin, though his face was as angular as that of a child. He looked naturally beautiful. The boy's body seemed to have lost itself the moment that two large arms, dark in shade, thick in circumference, took the man fiercely from behind and claimed him; cemented themselves around his body. The boy who held this Franklin close was embedded with white feathers, all of which glistened, seemed to glow beneath the undulating shadows of the clouds that teased the sky with light foreshadows of rain. Darker skin pressed itself into the reaped adolescent and pulled the smaller figure straight against his chest.

It was as simple as a glance. Now, Byron had himself searching his mind for the few images of feathers he could find. So many things passed him by, fluttering, swooping below, just where he could reach it until it it was pounding his chest dead in the center - until the revelation had him bound. He remembered being dragged out of the class, arm being bruised beneath the force of a grown lady's hand, with the 'angel' of the class being unable to move a finger. The name was vivid and fresh in Byron's mind, though when the letters for 'Soomjone' touched his tongue, they stung him. He wished to never let it leave his mouth.

As Byron scraped his eyes over the scene, his mind polluted itself. He remembered Soomjone; remembered his qualities, the funny lisp within his voice and the high pitch with which he once spoke. Fingers which were once chubby were now lengthy and dry digits hardened with strength and stained with old paint. All over him, there were hints of color - color that gave him his very definition. Soomjone, with all his comments on the smells and the sights of the classroom; all his murmured observations. Once, the tiny feathered-up boy had pressed his dripping green hand onto the surface of byron's shirt, coating over the anthropomorphic design of some character in a cartoon, telling Byron things that everyone knew were senseless. 'Red is the color of heat.' Even then, the kid was crazy about paint. Everything about Soomjone had pointed to him becoming some kind of artist.

Soom's eyes were colored the blue hue around a midnight moon. Now, they were not peering over a chubby, six-year-old shoulder, buried beneath a silken bush of ivory feathers and unknowing, carrying only confusion to give. This was the gaze that roared with a storm of feelings just at the surface, now, toiling, falling over its own footsteps with ideas and words that overlapped and screamed to be heard - to be noticed and to make some kind of difference, and now they were bridged with the red beginnings of waterworks. The kid - man, now - had his plump lips moistened with saliva, whispering words frantically into the ear of the boy who had been reaped. Now, the two of them had lips that wriggled with syllables of unknown sentiments.

Soom's ivory feathers rustled with every unheard word. The darker-skinned man craned his powerful neck and murmured his final words of parting into Franklin's ear before finally seeming to have given up. Soomjone's hand was on Franklin's neck. He dragged his lips warmly over the flesh of his lover's angled chin, and his lips grew moister; suddenly, he was murmuring those words into the reaped boy's mouth.

Byron had his gaze melded to the screen, as everything about the occasion was undeniably fascinating in some convoluted sort of manner. Of all the professions available, Byron just hadn't quite pictured Soomjone, the 'class angel', going on this path. Not on the path where his tongue was scraping into the cave of the mouth of a man with his neck craving, hands gripping at his waist, pulling his lover closer to get a better taste as the cameras lingered on their figures. He seemed to be muttering things to him. His mouth was moving in cohesion with the other's. The pleading words "Don't leave me; can't," were drowning in a drizzle of saltwater and pain.

Pearl, shivering the whole while with her shoulder pressed into the arm of her husband, was now freezing into place, and Byron's warmth left her quickly. His body was obstructing his two sons' view.

"Oh!" Some lady clad in blue frills and fishnet stockings blanketing her smoke-colored legs had an arm clutched over her chest, redness flushing in like streams and bringing the one inch of color that made her face look human. Her green eyes blew wide, latched themselves onto many different men in a scramble of desperation, a frantic 'is anybody seeing this?'

Deep within the center of Byron, he felt a charge of regret for even paying heed to the little Reaping notice in his voicemail box. The notice had called this whole thing mandatory. 'A reaping for the better of our lives.'

Soomjone and Franklin were pried from each other with the assistance of four hefty arms, much to the chagrin of many female participants in the audience, one of which went wild, snarling and screaming that these laws and regulations were thieving Panem of its love. Many men were shouting, too. They hollered curses and cringe-worthy remarks. One of them screamed an f-word Byron didn't think he'd ever observed leaving someone's mouth.

He felt sick in the stomach.

Franklin's skinny limbs tangled within themselves, and he hung on the shoulder of some woman who had once been a mom but was now declared a 'tribute'. The lady held him with her right arm, a strangerly kind of friendliness for a person who was just as dead now as she was. The camera flashed to Soomjone in the crowd. Byron's dark-skinned former classmate, for the first time in a decade, had a posture that trembled as he stood, holding his arms directly to his chest. Soomjone wiped saliva and tears from his face.

"Alright, now." Effie Trinket's bulbous head of hair quivered. The pink tendrils trembled and shook beneath the pound of the cool wind. Her mouth had a way of pinching into two wrinkled rows, the bubble-gum scarlet folding into many different lines and scrunching tight. She looked firm, blue eyes darting from side to side and ogling the big screen, always. When glancing at the paper clutched in her fingers, she was hardly giving the lists a scrape of her attention. She was breezing. And out came the names, that easily, like a breeze. "Amantha Figlant ... Rediline Draught ..." It was a cacophony of words, names, syllables smashed together from a list crudely written and for reasons no less slimy than the flesh of a slug in the garden. Below the chime of her voice clamored the screams of a thousand others. A man who was thought sleeping burst to life on stage, lungs dragging in a tremendous gulp of the cold. His eyes were blown wide, chest an inch from its burst.

"Byron," Pearl was calling him. His name was always said with a ring against her lips, like it was coated in brown sugar, though her eyes were disks of unease when his gaze came to. "Feel." Her fingers wove through his, light digits radiating warmth like a comforter woven of fine silk. His palm was coarse against her, the light skin stinging red beneath the brisk wind. Her stomach, by now, was a globe. Kicks and soft nudges pressed into his hand, and the beat of his heart ka-thunked, a drum within the boundaries of his chest. Ronny's forefinger was a small, curious little worm brushing against his as the little boy pressed his hand to Pearl's stomach. The green in her eyes glimmered with a shudder. "Do you feel her?"

Byron had time barely to part his lips. The names were being shot off in the background, all occurring in a rapid fire of language - a succession even quicker than it once had been. It was like listening to the alphabet; reading out a classic song from yellowed music sheets. The woman at the stage had lipstick that shimmered.

So when she said the both of their names — "both Byron _and_ Pearl Hanna" — it felt for the slightest of moments that nothing had changed at all.

Chris was the only alert to any difference, as he swatted at his father's shoulder, screeching the man's name, his legs kicking more fiercely than he should have, being held in Byron's arms. Byron almost had to watch his son fall to the ground. Shock splintered from his center like an earthquake. Ronny had a gaze that wavered and shook, and wight the enunciation of his fathers's name, the points and lines of its sound on Effie's lips. So _final. _Ronny was an inch from crying. Chris had already come to that point. The small boy had both of his legs weaken beneath him, and he shouted. The mixture of his and Pearl's shrieks wafted into the wind like a melody of morbid sadness. Byron's name was elongated now on Pearl's lips. All the sugar-sweetness had torn like paper.

"Byron!" Someone yelled, and it wasn't Pearl. It had echoed from the other side, a mile-away sound reaching at its edges. _Not enough time, _he thought to himself.

Clutching onto three people at once seems, at first, like a daunting endeavor. These three creatures were the final pieces of a puzzle that made Bryon whole. Their arms were life itself. Byron had his hand on Pearl's stomach, speaking to Patricia in tones hushed. His voice amid their yells was so quiet. It was a whisper; a yawn of fire among the dreary atmosphere. Little Patricia wasn't born yet. Six months in. She still looked like an alien. Pearl had her fingers intertwined with his, and the dryness of his digits made no difference now. Now, everything was heat. It all was anger. Ronny bellowed.

His eyes scoured the square, praying, hoping that of the thousands of people, one would make it all quit now - for them, for Pearl. Before him, there was a single color: the menacing, spicy tone of crimson, rocketing like the hatred; the fear that muddled in his soul. Red; only red was all Byron could see. The Peacekeeper had a hold that bruised them both. The yelp of Pearl sounded closer to a squeal of discomfort than of defiance. All Byron saw . . . was red.

Red: the color of heat.


End file.
